A very dear friend of mine had her twins yesterday via c-section. A boy (5 lbs 5 oz) and a girl (5 lbs 7 oz). Boy is doing great...a natural born nurser YEAH!! The little girl is in the NICU with breathing problems...possibly pneumonia. Apparantly, the long term prognosis is fine, she's just having a rough first few days .

Mom is nursing ds and pumping for dd and is understandably exhausted and upset and worried. I really want to do something special for her. It's got to be something sent..she is too far away to visit easily and even if I could I don't have a sittter for my 2 yo. She will be released on Thursday, but it looks like DD will be in NICU at least through early next week. I was thinking maybe a really luxurious set of nursing pjs...any other suggestions welcomed or recomendations for pjs!

The best gift I got was a huge basket of fruit and snacks. It carried me and dh through the first couple of weeks when we were spending all our time at the hospital.

Me too. The best gift I remember was a food basket that another twin mom gave me from Trader Joe's. It was full of Luna Bars, nuts, and other snacky things (I can't remember exactly what, sorry--but the nuts & Luna Bars were a life saver for a nursing mom pumping milk for 2 babies). I was SO hungry after having my girls.

Both of my babies were in the NICU for 2 weeks, so quick food to give me good energy was good in that crazy, emotional time.

Food is a good gift.

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Originally Posted by faythe

As far as PJ's go, cute, but honestly, I didn't wear them until things had settled down and both girls were nursing well. Before that I spent a lot of time topless, lol!

Ditto. If I had to wear clothes, I wore my ratty robe.

If you feel the need to buy clothes, buy them for the babies. The hospital my babies were in had clothes for the babies in the NICU, but it meant a lot to me for them to have their own stuff.

During our first weeks with the twins, I was starving all the time and unbelievably exhausted. Ours were very high needs babies and apparently I needed a ton of food to make milk to feed them and we had no time to prepare food.

The best gift we got was that my MIL organized all of her friends to bring us dinner once or twice a week for the first month. It was amazing. They would show up, drop off the food (everything ready to eat) and leave. No obligation to socialize (which I found exhausting), just great veggie meals.

As for PJs, I never found nursing clothes helpful and leaked so much the first months that I just used old t-shirts to sleep in (not to mention all of the spit up).

Another vote for food!! A couple of my friends stocked my freezer (literally) full of frozen stuff that lasted us through the first couple months (combined w/ my parents coming down every weekend for the first while & Mom would cook all meals, with leftovers, while they were here). As far as vegetarian meals (or non for that matter). IMO food is most helpful if people ask the recpient what they like. If she says "anything" you can do a search for vegetarian freezer meals (about.com has a bunch) & get some that way. We're vegetarian but we're also quite picky (dh especially) so my friends got a list of recipes from me, along with asking me for feedback on some they had or found (the one I remember was we went over to my friend's house for dinner one day (when I was still pg) & after the meal, she specifically asked dh "did you like that entree? Would you eat it again?" and when he said yes she said "ok good, that's one I was planning to make & freeze for you". It takes away the suprise but is more practical IMO. Especially with a new nursing mom, everyone has their own preferences about what they do & don't want to eat to begin with (dairy, spicy foods, nuts, etc) so it's just better to find out what they want & then make that for them.

Thanks for the suggestions ladies. I'll skip the pjs and go heavy on the food ! I just got off the phone with her, she and her son are going home tomorrow, but they had to transfer her daughter to the city for probable open heart surgery . Please keep them in your thoughts.

Oh, that poor little thing--I'll be praying for success and quick healing after the surgery, and peace for the family.

The best gift I got after my guys were born wouldn't work for you, but it was so wonderful I'm going to tell you anyway!

A dear friend of mine, also a mama but not currently nursing, came over and spent the night and got up to feed the babies all night long! I was pumping, because our guys had such a weak suck that we had to bottle feed for the first 2.5 months before I could transition them to the breast. So I would bottle feed one baby while dh bottle fed the other, which took at least 30 to 45 minutes at this point. Then, after changing both boys and getting them settled back to sleep, I would have to pump and then clean everything so I could pump again next time.

We had the boys on a 3 hour feeding schedule at this point, so I was up again in 1.5 hours to start the whole proccess all over again. (FYI, if the babies woke up before three hours, I would always, always feed them--the schedule was so that they wouldn't go any longer than three hours between feedings. They were small preemies, and usually had to be woken up to eat.)

So for this one, wonderful night, about three weeks after our guys were born, my dh got to sleep the entire night through, and I got up every three hours to pump--and went back to bed! She even cleaned the pump for me, so I could get that extra five minutes of sleep....Bless her!

I would completely agree that food is a great gift for a new twin mama. Also, the big basket of fruit and snacks would be very welcome. Traditional Medicinals Mother's Milk Tea is very good--and actually tastes good, too!

Thanks for the thoughts & prayers! I'm going to check in with her tomorrow and see how things are going and find out if/when her DD is going to have the surgery. I'll let you all know how things turn out.

I spoke with my friend yesterday. Her dd had open heart surgery on Friday and is doing MUCH better, off the vent and breathing on her own! She is getting at least some breastmilk by bottle . I'm so impressed with her. She is home by herself for the most part with her newborn DS recovering from a c/s while her dh is in the city with ds and is still managing to nurse ds and pump for dd!

Thanks for all your suggestions and well wishes! I am putting together a basket of nursing teas and easy snacks and will bring a couple of freezer ready meals when I go visit.